A Second Start
by chaserzachsmith
Summary: After the war, Anthony can't quite get his life in order.


"You said the pet store smelled like shit and I understood," says Terry. "You said the tailor chewed gum loudly and I understood. You said you hated washing dishes and I understood. You said the dress shop ladies were condescending and I called you a sensitive idiot behind your back but _this-_ "

"You called me a _what_?" says Anthony, and Michael interrupts.

"You have to be able to hold a job," he says.

"Thanks for your input, Michael."

"What happens when there's nobody in Diagon Alley who will hire you?" says Michael reasonably.

"Hogsmeade," says Anthony. He doesn't intend it to be funny.

"That's not funny," says Michael. "Merlin, Anthony. Do you _want_ to live with your parents for the rest of your life?"

"I'm not going to live with my parents for the rest of my life," says Anthony flatly. He doesn't like having this conversation with his parents and he definitely doesn't like having it with his friends. The real indignity is that this isn't a fight he can win- he really has no excuse for going through eleven jobs in three years.

"You are if you can't get a job and save money," says Michael.

"I _have_ money," says Anthony. "I'm biding my time, am I allowed to do that?"

"It's been three years," Michael persists. "You could at least-"

"Here's an idea, Michael," says Anthony sharply. "Let me disappoint my parents in peace, and I'll let you disappoint yours."

"Go ahead and sabotage yourself then," snaps Michael, and they both descend into a furious and uncomfortable silence and wait for Terry to intervene.

"Mike's right, you know," says Terry.

Anthony and Michael glance at each other and glance away. Of course they'd never do anything as mature and decent as apologise to each other, so Terry makes the first move. "Tony, if you can make it a year at a job I'll kiss my cat."

"I've already seen you kiss your cat," says Anthony stubbornly. "At least fifty times."

"I'll let you kiss my cat," says Terry.

"Fat chance," says Anthony.

"I'll kiss you," says Terry.

They both look at Michael expectantly. He is still prickly from Anthony's jibe earlier; he scowls. "I'll buy you a beer. A cheap one, at the Hog's Head. Not on tap."

This is as generous as Michael is going to get. Anthony accepts the offer.

* * *

Anthony only makes it three months at the apothecary because his manager finds out he's got a glass eye and starts sneaking on his blind side and scaring him.

"That's justified," he says gloomily. "I admit that the dust in the bookstore was just an excuse, but I could not work with that man. I would have broken his legs."

"That's justified," says Michael grudgingly. "Good luck next time."

Anthony only makes it four months at the fifth restaurant he has worked at because the floors and walls are stone and the door is heavy and reminiscent of the Hogwarts dungeons. At the end, he'd gotten a bad night of sleep and the next day had been badly on edge. After three minutes of jumping at footsteps he'd gone to clear his head in the meat locker and locked himself in.

It was embarrassing explaining that one to the manager.

"That's also justified, right?" he says, and Michael and Terry concede it.

His parents argue in the kitchen when they think he's asleep; he lurks on the stairs listening miserably and picks at the back of his hand.

"We can't push him," says his mother, almost pleadingly. "He's been through-"

"We know," says his father. "By now we all know what he's been through."

There's a pause, before his mother says, "Did you read the Prophet? It's the first I heard about that Michael Corner boy getting tortured. He never said anything-"

"It was years ago. He's got to grow up," says his father. "He's sabotaging himself."

"And if we pressure him?" says his mother. "Who's to say he won't just sabotage himself faster?"

"If we don't do anything, then he'll go nowhere at all," says his father.

* * *

Anthony visits his sister one night and they sit on her sofa with glasses of wine. "Hey Anthony," she says.

Miriam loves to pose weird, philosophical questions when they're drunk. Hey Anthony, do you think people get redeemed? Hey Anthony, who do you think can judge another person? Hey Anthony, would you kill someone to save a life? Hey Anthony, do you ever question your own existence?

"Yeah?"

"I was really mad at you in 1998."

This isn't a weird, philosophical question and Anthony almost doesn't realise it at first. He is sleepy and the wine makes him lethargic. "Why?"

"Why do you think?"

Anthony doesn't ever think about this. "I don't-"

"Remember the holidays? Remember you had a whole month's worth of time you could have come home?"

"I was a Prefect," Anthony says defensively. He'd actually had his badge taken away by the time winter holiday had arrived but he'd still been a Prefect in spirit. "I wasn't gonna leave Ravenclaw-"

"I know," says Miriam. "And that was big of you. Heroic and all. But I mean- it hurt, a little."

Anthony can't help but be hurt by this too- he'd really thought Miriam understood how much it had meant to him to be a Prefect.

Miriam, maybe realising he's about as talkative as he's going to get, continues. "Do you know what it was like outside of Hogwarts? Rumours flying around about how people were getting beaten and chained up and cut up- and then we didn't see you all year."

"I wrote you," says Anthony to his glass.

It's a feeble defense and she doesn't dignify it with a reply. "It drove Mum spare."

Anthony, for the first time, realises that this isn't actually about him. He runs through a mental list of his options and decides on a bald-faced lie. "I didn't have much trouble that year."

"We had no way to know that," says Miriam.

"I was a Prefect," he says. Another feeble defense and another lie. Poor form. He tilts his glass one way, then the other, and watches the wine swish back and forth.

"We could tell you were lying in your letters," she says to the back of his head when he glances away.

This, out of everything else, is what bothers him. "What, you'd prefer the truth?" he says. "Dear Miriam, so far this week is going great! I only got tortured once."

"You could have said _something_ ," snaps Miriam. "You could have acted like you understood there was a war on-"

"Do you think I _didn't_?" grits Anthony.

"You could have at least let us know for sure you were okay!"

Anthony scowls and clams up.

"You could have died in the Battle and we'd have gotten your body in a bag with a missing eye and whatever happened to your arms-"

Anthony flushes and tugs his sleeve down over the burn scars. "I didn't though," he says. Another feeble defense; she regards him over the top of her glass.

"Do you ever think about that?" says Miriam.

He is not nearly drunk enough for this conversation. Face burning, he gets the bottle and refills his glass. Miriam watches him fumble with the cork and offers a tight, almost apologetic smile.

"That's what I thought," she says.

* * *

"What I don't get is how you're doing better at a job with sticky food and excited children than you were in a boring bookstore," says Terry, when he and Michael visit him at Fortescue's.

Anthony's reasoning is very simple: he'd rather live in London than Hogsmeade, and he'd rather work in an ice cream shop than a Quidditch shop, and his options are limited.

"We dust daily," he says, and Terry rolls his eyes. Michael sneaks a hand towards the tray of free fudge and Anthony lets him have two pieces. What else are friends for?

Fortescue's sister, Frances, is a strict but absent owner; Anthony's manager is unfriendly but doesn't think it's funny to take advantage of his disability and his jumpiness. All things considered it's a good gig, and the walk-in freezer unlocks from the inside.

Michael's hand sneaks back towards the tray and Anthony swats it back and moves the tray. "You weren't even supposed to take two," he says.

Terry grabs a piece and gives it to Michael. "There," he says as Michael puts it in his mouth and chews contemplatively. Anthony shakes his head in defeat.

"If you ever visit me at work again I'll put your photos on the 'do not serve' wall," he threatens.

The threat does it; they buy their cones cheerfully and he watches as they eat at the cafe tables outside. He wipes the counter just so he can feel like he's doing anything at all.

* * *

"What I don't get is why you never told your parents anything," says Michael. "You always seemed to get along."

Michael and his father haven't gotten along in years and they all know it; Terry and his parents had clashed shortly after the war ended over politics and Terry's career. Anthony, on the other hand, still lives with his parents. More impressively, he still talks to them, and even more impressively, he still attends temple with them every week.

"Why don't you tell yours?" says Anthony, in an attempt to avoid the question.

"You're avoiding the question."

It had been a half-hearted attempt anyway. "They wouldn't understand," says Anthony.

"Well no," says Michael. "Not if you don't _tell_ them anything."

"Once I mentioned you'd been Cruciated and Miriam looked shocked," says Terry, flopped on Anthony's bed. "I think it was the first she'd heard of it."

"Why were you talking about me to my sister?" says Anthony.

"We ran into each other at the grocer," says Terry.

"And the subject just came up," says Anthony doubtfully.

"She said you were so sleep deprived you looked undead, and I said, quote, you should have seen him after the Cruciatus, ha ha ha, end quote," says Terry. "And she looked _shocked_."

" _Why_ would you say that?" says Anthony.

"It was the first thing that popped in my head," says Terry defensively. "And you _did_ look undead."

"Do I look undead now?" Anthony doesn't think he's _that_ sleep deprived. He's at least sleeping every night.

"Significantly less than you used to," Terry assures him.

"Thanks," says Anthony drily.

"Remember the one after whatever you said about Amycus's magical technique?" Terry says. "You were turning gray when he finished."

"Hmm," says Anthony, who remembers exactly what he'd said about Amycus's magical technique. "That shouldn't count as one. He got me three times."

"Right," says Terry. "You couldn't ever keep your mouth shut-"

This must be dragging Michael's mood down; he interrupts them. "Anthony's never kept his mouth shut. We already knew that."

"I have so," says Anthony, but without any conviction.

"Did I tell you what my sister said to me last week?" Michael says, giving up on gradually shifting the conversation and diverting it entirely.

Before the war, when they'd fought it'd been impersonal and intellectual. They'd had nothing significant to disagree over and their fights had been more like debates. A way to keep up rapport, to kill time, to make conversation. Now they're lucky if they can make it through a conversation without actually arguing, without anyone's feelings hurt, without dredging up bad topics and making it uncomfortable.

The truth is that they don't have much in common anymore. And they never had. They'd just been three Ravenclaws in the same year who loved a good squabble and who'd spent seven years and a war and another few years together.

And now, with Michael plodding along at his job, and Terry with the Aurors, and Anthony eking out his living and living with his parents- they're going different directions and they're changing, at once slowly and too fast. It stands to reason that they could change enough to grow apart, eventually, and the thought scares Anthony.

Michael is finishing his inane story about his sister when Anthony forces himself back into the conversation.

"Does she still want to be a Gryffindor?" says Terry.

"Unfortunately," says Michael.

"Unfortunately?" says Anthony, who thinks Michael's opinions of Gryffindors are unfounded and mostly shaped by his relationship with Ginny Weasley and the DA.

"Didn't you want Gryffindor when you were Sorted?" says Terry, and Michael laughs.

"That ship sailed ten years ago, Terry," he says. "You're derailing the subject."

Are they drifting apart even now? Anthony looks at Michael, then at Terry. It could be any time in the last eleven years, any fight they've ever had that they didn't mean anything by, but Michael is still tense from discussing the Carrows, Terry is trying too hard to keep the conversation going. The realisation is damning- they really have changed irreversibly.

"I'm just saying," says Terry, and grins. "She's going to make a proper rebel."

"Merlin help me," says Michael. "Merlin help my _parents_."

Anthony laughs and puts it out of his mind.

* * *

When Terry opens the door, it is clear that he has just woken up. His hair, even as short as it's cropped, is mussed. He is in his pants and an undershirt and socks and he looks almost physically pained to be standing there. He is not angry so much as defeated. Anthony hears Michael, loitering on his crutches behind him, mutter an automatic apology.

"It's my day off," says Terry, his voice teetering into a whine. He jabs one hand back into his flat. "It's after midnight. Please tell me you have a good reason for this."

"Since when does your day off mean you go to sleep early?" says Anthony. It is unfathomable that Terry has the best sleep schedule, of the three of them.

"I'm closing the door in five seconds."

The door.

"I'm up to a year," says Anthony. "It's a year today."

Terry makes the connection much faster than Michael had.

* * *

"That was the most uncomfortable kiss I've ever seen," Michael vows, when he buys them drinks the next day. (Cheap, at the Hog's Head, not on tap.)

"It wasn't bad," says Terry. Anthony elects to remain quiet.

"I'm sure it wasn't," says Michael. "It was uncomfortable to watch."

"It was long," agrees Terry cheerfully. It had indeed been long. Almost uncomfortably so. But Anthony hadn't pulled away, so he supposes he's as much to blame.

"When you said kiss, I thought you meant a normal kiss," says Anthony. "A normal, unemotional, chaste, dispassioned, brief-"

"I am so sorry for anyone you've ever kissed," Terry tells Anthony.

Michael stares morosely into his beer. "That's burned on my mind forever," he tells them. "Terry half naked and all."

"I was not half naked," says Terry. "I had a shirt and shorts."

"Your legs are half your body," says Michael. "You're freakishly tall."

"We can't all have stumps for legs," says Terry.

"Leave my stumps out of it," says Michael. Terry hesitates, trying to gauge whether Michael's joking or actually touchy about it.

Michael is probably actually touchy; he often is. Anthony intervenes. "I don't like this implication that I'm a bad kisser."

"It wasn't a perfect kiss, so you must be. I know for a fact I'm a great kisser," says Terry.

"Is he?" Michael says, looking at Anthony.

Anthony had hoped to avoid passing judgement. Frankly it'd been a fantastic kiss. "Yeah," he says.

"See?" says Terry. "I did a good job. If you were gonna wake me up for a kiss I was gonna make it worth it."

"You're ridiculous," says Michael.

"I should have kissed your cat," says Anthony, shaking his head.

* * *

He realises a few minutes late that Terry has disappeared from the event; he finds him smoking outside on the balcony. Terry doesn't look around at him, just says, "Michael had the right idea."

Anthony joins Terry at the railing, leans his elbows on it. "Michael has a lot of right ideas," he says.

They are quiet for a moment, the music from the ballroom drifting out to them. "You're already bored?" says Anthony, when he has gotten uncomfortable.

"I needed a smoke," says Terry. He exhales and they both watch the smoke dissipate.

"I hate these," says Anthony, like a confession. Terry raises his eyebrows and nods.

"Why do you come then?" he says.

Why _does_ he keep coming? That's not a question Anthony can answer himself. He has nothing else to do, he's got no principles keeping him away, he's just unfathomably bored, they give him free champagne for the price of one night in dress robes with the Ministry officials who pat him on the back and thank him for his service.

He shrugs rather than explain it.

"Alright," mutters Terry, disgruntled at the lack of an answer.

Anthony turns to look up at Terry. "Why are you here?"

"It's five years," says Terry. "I figured it was a notable anniversary."

"Five years," echoes Anthony. "It feels kind of unreal."

"Yeah," says Terry. "Yeah, it does."

* * *

He has started to keep a routine. He works until eleven at night and then he and his manager and his coworker close shop. The sign on the door, then the blinds, then the locks. The broom and the mop.

He goes down the street to the Leaky Cauldron when he's done. Not to drink- he's never been much for drinking. More to kill time- he can head back home after midnight, when he's sure his parents will be in bed.

The Leaky, on the weekdays, is quiet. Only Anthony and Hannah Abbott and the five or so other regulars who detest themselves and the man who plays piano. Sometimes there's someone else from the DA, but more often than not it's just Hannah at the bar and Anthony hunched over a soda.

In the DA they'd gotten closer, more out of necessity than because they really got along. They'd both trailed after Neville in the month that Luna and Ginny were both gone, doing their best to offer advice and ideas. They have started to talk more often now, but without Neville to worry over, they aren't sure how to fill conversation except to talk about themselves or their friends. Even that is uncomfortable- Michael and Susan have been _together_ for years and discussing them feels gossipy. Anthony had been victim to a few nasty rumours in third year and hates it, even though he's sure Hannah's less averse to it.

But he and Hannah were both in leadership positions in the DA and they are both in low-level jobs; they understand each other better than they might admit.

"I'm afraid we're drifting apart," Anthony confesses, at two in the morning in October. "It feels like we are."

Hannah nods. "After the war we couldn't really click anymore. I think too much had happened- Justin was on the run, and Susan's mother died, and then me and Ernie-"

"Yeah," says Anthony. He is almost grateful that he and his friends hadn't had to contend with something like that- Terry could have been taken to Azkaban with his parents, for instance, and without Terry around he's sure he and Michael would have driven each other insane. No- it's almost fortunate that they'd been at Hogwarts.

"I can't blame Justin for getting lucky," says Hannah thoughtfully. "I don't think any of us can. But it does make it weird."

"Yeah," says Anthony. He'd spent a lot of time with Justin in eighth year, when they had both felt out of sorts with everyone else. They liked the same music and could convince themselves it was enough to build a friendship on.

"He's trying," she says. "He's trying very hard."

"Yeah," says Anthony.

* * *

Anthony is towelling off his hair when his sister knocks. He lets her hang outside for a moment as he sighs heavily and wonders if he can fake being out.

"Hm," she says, looking around the room. "Did Mum decorate it?"

Their mum is a tasteful, picky woman. Anthony's new flat features a hideous green couch, the box his bookshelf had come in as a coffee table, and the bookshelf itself, half-assembled and abandoned the night before.

Anthony, picking at his shirt where it sticks to his stomach, does not reply. His mother would die if she set foot here.

"Is that porn?" says Miriam, pointing at a magazine on the floor.

It is. He kicks it under the couch and she rolls her eyes and sits down. "Do us all a favour and get rid of it before our parents visit."

"They won't look under the couch," says Anthony, nudging a paper bag of laundry out of view.

"You've never met our mother," says Miriam.

"Right," says Anthony, for lack of any defense. It _does_ seem something their mother would do.

"Get a real coffee table too," she advises. She props her feet on his box and he winces as the cardboard bows under her boots.

"I've only been here for a week, Miriam."

"Mum would die of shame if she saw this."

Anthony thinks this is unfair. "At least I have furniture," he says. Actually, he hasn't got a bed yet and is sleeping on his own couch, and his dresser is doubling as his kitchen table, but that's neither here nor there.

"It's not enough. You need a real coffee table."

"Noted," he says.

"Hey Anthony," says Miriam, which puts him on edge.

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you got this place," she says. "Even if it's awful. And- it is awful."

Anthony can't decide whether to be offended or not; he nods.

* * *

"So this is it," says Michael, unimpressed. Michael is already inclined to hate the apartment, because the stairs were too narrow for comfortably using crutches and the elevator smelled awful.

"This is it," agrees Anthony. He gestures around at the room. "Comments?"

"I hate it," says Michael, predictably.

"Comments from someone other than Michael," says Anthony.

Tactfully, Susan Bones offers a gentle "It has potential."

"Yeah, potential," says Terry, prodding the unfinished bookshelf with two fingers. "I especially like the coffee table."

"It's a start," says Susan, and loops one arm through Michael's. "Right?"

"Yeah," says Michael, looking sideways at her. "It's a really good start."

"That's all it needs to be," says Anthony.

"A start," echoes Terry, and Anthony looks around the room, ugly wallpaper and cardboard boxes and the dirty laundry paper bag, at his best friends (and Susan Bones) and the way that, even if Michael is wrinkling his nose at the couch and Terry is rapping the bookshelf with his knuckles, they approve of it in their own way.

"A start," he agrees.

* * *

Many apologies for yet another fic about these boys. Honestly this might be the last we see of them for a while- I've put most of what I have planned for them in this fic. It's been quite a ride, from first year to post-war, and I'm beyond glad that I was able to write any of it at all. Many thanks to anyone who's been reading and following this (disjointed, unusual, very niche) story.


End file.
